Nursing Values: The Past and the Future

It seems fair to say that the values nurses hold dear first came really into focus in the work of Florence Nightingale. Of course her reputation was made through her work with the British Military in the Crimea in the mid 19th Century where she realised that most deaths of soldiers were not from battle wounds but from cholera and other transmissible infections. Although she failed to believe in the microbial theory of disease, she knew the solution empirically as excellent hygiene, good nutrition and less overcrowding. Unfortunately, even over 150 years later, hospital managers -who increasingly are not nurses!- have forgotten these premises and we have been beset by grave increases in transmissible infections in hospital practice. I think Nightingale could be regarded as holding the “character” of the nurse as greatly important in the qualities nurses should possess to be proficient in their art. She saw order, gentleness, quietness and (sadly) obedience to medical authority as among these qualities. Holding both a strong belief in God and having been trained in a Christian order herself, the influence of these traditions, together with chastity, is clearly derived from religious orders. For over a century nurses’ uniforms everywhere showed close similarity to nuns’ habits.